British man drives a TVR from the Arctic Sea to the tip of South America

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Here's a story that gets more interesting the more you look at it. A British man goes from pub to another – there's little inherent news value about that. But when you consider the pubs were over 20,000 miles apart, with one on the frozen island of Svalbard and the other one at Tierra del Fuego, Chile, the story becomes downright fascinating. And – he did the entire jaunt in a 20-year old TVR Chimaera

TVR built Chimaeras for roughly a decade. It's a fiberglass two-seater convertible with a Rover-derived V8, and they all were built in Blackpool. Part of the reason why the roadtrip machine had to be a TVR, was the carmaker's 70th anniversary; Trevor Wilkinson formed TVR in 1947.

expedition took Coombs seven months and 23,500 miles, driving through 24 countries. In July, Coombs started out from Pyramiden, an originally Soviet-built settlement at Svalbard, which is on the Arctic Sea. Pyramiden is also the northernmost place with a permanent civilian population – and only one pub. Coombs then hauled his car to northern Norway, driving south across Scandinavia, visiting the

factory in Sweden, and after touring through Europe he shipped the car to the States from Southampton. A coast-to-coast drive got him to California, and from there it was just a matter of driving all the way towards the southernmost publicly available pub in the world, in Puerto Williams.

the car needed during the trip was a new clutch in Nicaraqua; in Costa Rica, the local authorities demanded the right-hand-drive TVR needed to be delivered across the country on a truck bed! This was simply due to their aversion to RHD, since the clutch issue notwithstanding, no breakdowns happened on the entire tour. The famous Darien Gap from Panama to Colombia was handled by ferrying the car; from Colombia on, it was 8,000 miles of sometimes treacherous roads across South America.

After Coombs was able to reach the last pub in Tierra del Fuego on February 12

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– by all accounts a very simple establishment with just lager and whisky on offer – the journey was over, and it was time for the TVR to again board a boat and get shipped back home from Uruguay. Further plans include turning the "Pub2Pub" roadtrip into an adventuring brand offering uncommon roadtrips around the world. It's a good reminder you can just get in the driver's seat, crank a V8 to life and just not stop until you reach the end of the world.

Tesla has an excellent reputation for safety and it looks like the Model 3 is just as solid as its other EVs -- but it still needs a few tweaks. Reddit user "Model 3 Crash Dummy" managed to walk away from an accident that totaled his car, despite the fact that "the paramedics said I should be dead," he wrote. However, he also reported that his passenger's arm hit the center display, breaking it and cutting her arm, while also de-activating the glove box. Elon Musk heard about this, however, and promised hardware and software updates to fix the problem.

Despite the screen issue, the driver was convinced that he was far better off in the Tesla 3 than any gas-powered car. "The car is totaled but I am fine, my right ankle is swollen from hitting the gas pedal but i can still walk fine. Had this been a regular ICE vehicle I would be dead or in a lot worse condition. Everyone from the paramedics to the tow truck driver said that people don't usually walk away from this. I already put in another model 3 reservation," he wrote on Reddit.

Adding software feature to open glovebox automatically when car comes to a stop after a crash. Will look at bonding a thin plastic sheet to the front or back of screen.

The driver was grateful, but did point out one potential shortcoming. "My only complaint about this car is that during the crash my passenger's arm hit the screen and shattered it which prevented me from opening the glove box [with the] title and insurance. Needs a manual option. Also my passenger got a pretty big cut on her arm."

Musk heard about the matter from Teslarati and said Tesla would take action via software and possibly hardware fixes. "Adding software feature to open glovebox automatically when car comes to a stop after a crash. Will look at bonding a thin plastic sheet to the front or back of screen," he said.

The center screen has always been contentious, mostly because it displays speeds and other critical info off to the side, pulling your eyes away from the road. However, the fact that not it's integrated into the dash (unlike on the Toyota Prius, which also has an off-center display) and protrudes into the cabin a bit may be another potential safety issue.

Image: Reddit user -Model 3 Crash Dummy

RedditThis story originally appeared onEngadget, your guide to this connected life.Related Video:

, the Project ONE. And its long-time boat-building partner Cigarette Racing has a special boat to match it. It’s called the 515 Project ONE and like the car, it’s silver, and it’s fast. Powering the boat is a pair of

Racing 1,350/1,550 engines. They’re twin-cam V8s that each make 1,350 horsepower on 91-octane fuel, and 1,550 hp on racing fuel. That means a total output of between 2,700 and 3,100 horsepower the 515 Project ONE has a top speed of 140 mph. Pricing for the special edition boat will be made available upon request. We take that to mean it will be really, really expensive. But hey, that’s one more way it’ll be like the road car. Cigarette Racing builds yet another AMG-themed speedboat. Now that Mercedes-AMG has released its latest sports car, the Project One with its F1 engine, it was only natural that it's long-time boat-building partner Cigarette Racing would have a special boat to go with it. It's called the 515 Project One, and like the car, it's silver, and it's fast. Need more coverage head to autoblog.com.

Last year, British appliance manufacturer Dyson said it would devoteÂ $2.7 billion towards the development of an electric car. The plan was to build a vehicle using advanced solid state batteries and bring it to market in 2020. There was no shortage of jokes about how a company that primarily produces vacuum cleaners would probably make a car that really sucked wasn’t very good.

However, the joke seems to be on them, as Dyson isn’t working on an electric car at all. Recent reports seem to indicate it’s actually developing three. But you can still snicker about the overly ambitious battery timeline, because there is practically no way the company can hit that target. Instead, it looks as if Dyson will rely onÂ lithium-ion batteriesÂ rather than solid state on the first carÂ â€” effectively eliminating the one big advantage it would have had when entering the market.Â

A new report from theÂ Financial Times, which managed to get a peek at Dysonâ€™s EV program, said the first car will be used to establish a point of entry into the automotive market, a supply chain, and a potential customer base. As a result, it should have “a relatively low production run.” According to people familiar with the plan, the number would be in the low thousands.

Before you put that plan down, it’s essentially what Tesla did with its first model. Since the introduction of the Roadster, which had a product run of aroundÂ 2,450 units between 2008 and 2011, the company has managed to increase its staff tenfold and become a darling on Wall Street.

However, Tesla’s first car was also the first model to break the coveted 200-mile range mark. That helped, along with a difficult-to-ignore CEO, helped get the company a lot of positive attention. Dyson will be entering the market with a vehicle that could be competitive but is unlikely to break any records without help from the solid state cells.

That said, it isn’t abandoning the technology. Dyson has already acquired Michigan-based battery startup Sakti3 for $90 million and announced its intention to build a $1 billion battery factory â€” specifically for solid state batteriesÂ â€” in the near future. But it alsoÂ abandoned the University of Michigan’s $200,000-a-year license patent portfolio Sakti3 used as a base for its own research and split with the company’s founder, Ann Marie Sastry. That leaves us wondering if Dyson actually got what it needed from the deal.

The FT article reported that the company is considering a few automotive manufacturing locations. Presently it appears to be leaning toward production based in the United Kingdom, but has also been examining sites in Singapore, Malaysia and China.

While there’s definitely room in the EV market for new entrants, Dyson would need to work quickly to avoid serious competition from established manufacturers. It’s doubtful that any company is going to have solid state technology ready for cars in the next two years, but they are all actively pursuing it.

does indeed have that tall center grille inlet seen in the leaked images. The line dividing it from the flanking grilles clearly extends a bit higher than the side grilles. We can also just barely make out the outline of the headlights, which narrow down significantly as they stretch to the middle. Basically, it looks like what we saw in the leaked images. Other details that match up with those photos are the little air inlets under the headlights and the vent in the rear fender. The design of the wheels matches, too.

We did it! Thanks to the modern obsession with larger vehicles and opulence, domestic luxury brands are taking off like a rocket. It’s going so well, in fact, that American automakers are starting to steal market share from high-end import manufacturers. Of course, this is only applicable to SUV and crossover sales.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the luxury market. The rapid growth of the luxury truck segment has substantially increased the United States’ share of domestic models sold with an average transaction price of $60,000 or more. Apparently, the inarguably phenomenal Mercedes-Benz S-Class doesn’t have jack squat on theÂ GMC Yukon Denali.

Suck it, cars.Â

Obviously, we don’t truly believe that. Even with SUV sales blasting off into the stratosphere, sedans are coming off an absolutely massive share of domestic light vehicle sales. Even if they were to decline in popularity at their current rate, it would take many years before they became an insignificant portion of the market. We don’t want to be cocky about this, either. Look what’s happened to the minivan segment.

The fact remains thatÂ Americans are abandoning family sedans and small cars for sport utility vehicles and trucks. The New York Times estimates that, last month, two of every three new vehicles sold were classified as trucksÂ â€” either SUVs, crossovers, pickups, or minivans. The trend isn’t exclusive to mainstream nameplates. Luxury brands have been scrambling to flesh out their lineups to account for theÂ shift in preference and domestic manufacturers have done an incredible job.

GMC accounted for 11.3 percent of domestic sales for models with an average price of $60,000 or more in 2017, according to data from Edmunds. Five years earlier, the brand made up a mere 0.1 percent of those sales.Â Ford and Chevrolet witnessed similar, albeit more modest, increases driven by ultra-premium truck and SUV sales. However, both started with their feet a little deeper in the market.

Meanwhile, the share of the U.S. over-$60,000 club inhabited by Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Jaguar and Cadillac actually shrank by a considerable margin in the same timeframe. Established luxury brands are now losing ground to mainstream automakers in the premium segments. Hell, Ford will sell you a pickup that costs roughly $100,000 now. What a time to be alive!

“We are seeing it,” said Tom Libby, an industry analyst for IHS Markit. “There is movement from luxury cars to luxury trucks.”

It makes sense for automakers to push SUVs as hard as possible, too. They can charge more for them, and the profit margins are far better than that of sedans. In fact, certain cars even lose automakers money. General Motors reportedly loses around $9,000 on every Chevrolet Bolt it sells. While that’s a pretty extreme example (but weirdly common among electric cars), sedans just aren’t making the kind of fast cash that trucks are.

General Motors outlined its plan to produce even more pricey Denali variants for GMC at a recent investor conference. The company highlighted data indicating that the Denali line had an average sale price of $56,000, which is far more than the average transaction price for any of the German luxury brands that aren’t Porsche.

“This thing is a money machine,” saidÂ GM president Dan Ammann.

He’s not wrong. Domestic automakers makeÂ tens of thousands of dollars on a single well-optioned truck or SUV, and they’re going to milk them for every dime. Ford only started production on the fourth generation of the Expedition, along with the Lincoln Navigator, in September of last year. It has decided to build 25 percent more this year than originally planned.

At the same time, luxury sedan volume is shrinking. These models held roughly 7.5 percent of the total domestic market in in 2013, but that number slipped toÂ 5.4 in 2017. But manufacturers can load up a fairly basic truck with all the trimmings and it suddenly becomes irresistible. Currently, over half of all F-Series sales come from Lariat, King Ranch and Raptor models. That’s up from one-third just four years ago. Meanwhile, Denali editions now account for 29 percent of all GMCâ€™s sales.

According to translations sent in by several readers (and one editor’s mother), Toyota only plans to show off a GTE-class racing version of the Supra at the Geneva Motor Show. The road car, on the other hand, won’t debut until the New York auto show at the end of next month. This, of course, depends entirely on Best Car‘s information being accurate, but SupraMKV forum staff seem to believe it is.

For fans anxious to see the new Supra’s interior, which engines and transmissions will be available, and potentially even a few performance statistics, this news probably comes as a disappointment. Sure, the race car will probably look a lot like the road-going Supra, but the interior will likely be stripped, and power output could be significantly different. If you want an idea of how the Supra road car will look, check out the spy shot above, provided by SupraMKV, which appears to show a Supra prototype wearing production-spec wheels.

Even if we do have to wait a little longer to see it in production trim, after more than 15 years of waiting, the new Supra is finally almost here, and that’s definitely worth getting excited about.

It’s not fair to say there’s no truth in advertising; commercials often show vehicles driving in a straight line down a dry road, and we all know they can do that. Only the most gullible among us thinks a new muscle car will improve their love life faster than Billy Dee Williams can crack open a can of Colt 45.

All too often, smokin’ deals do not await shoppers who leave the house without reading the fine print. And even that fine print can hide whether you’re actually getting a bargain. With President’s Day coming up on Monday, here’s a few examples of juicy car promotions that are sure to waste some people’s time.

Thanks to the folks at CarsDirect, who spend much of the day concerning themselves with such things, we now know not to be suckered in on a $199 lease on the outgoing 2017 Ford Fiesta. This offer, available in California, amounts to $241 a month for 36 month after a $1,499 downpayment. For a buck more a month, you could have a 2018 Ford Focus SEL instead. Four more smackeroos nets you a new Fusion SE with tech package.

While offers vary by region, buyers are more likely than lessees to find a Fiesta deal. Ford has $2,000 in customer cash on the hood of new Fiestas nationwide, with other incentives available for certain customers.

One shouldn’t pay much attention to ads claiming “up to $3,030 off MSRP” on a Nissan Rogue, either, unless you’re hell-bent on buying a Midnight Edition model. To get the full discount, a buyer would need to spring for the uplevel trim and have their financing handled by Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp., which shaves $500 off the retail price. While lesser discounts are available for those seeking out lower-run Rogues, how many people are really interested in a SV-trim Nissan? Oh, right. Well, if that’s your bag, expect $1,780 cash back.

As this is 2018, juicy Rams sprout from advertisements everywhere. And what’s juicier than hearing of $11,856 in “total value”? You can just imagine eager would-be buyers shaving that sum from the MSRP of the one-up-from-base 1500 of their dreams (not TTAC readers, of course; they’re are too savvy to fall for such things.)

In reality, this lofty figure concerns only 2018 Big Horn models in a crew cab configuration. At around $41k, it’s hardly a bargain basement truck. As well, only 5,750 of those incentive dollars seem to apply to this particular model, and that’s only after financing through Chrysler Capital. FCA’s fine print says the remainder is what an average buyer can expect in dealer discounts, which isn’t something one can, ahem, bank on.

If you’re a lease customer, however, the Ram world becomes more generous. In Warren, Michigan, for example, there’s $7,500 in lease cash available for this same model. In L.A., that incentive falls to $5,250.

in a matter of seconds. Having driven the Jeep to a complete stop, the technicians start unbolting it until the body lifts off the frame and the engine can be hauled away. It only took half a minute to turn the Jeep into just a chassis on wheels. As

Apparently the technicians have now honed their mechanical choreography to the point that the Jeep can be disassembled and reassembled in two minutes and 39 seconds; while I expect a great number of bolts having been removed beforehand and the likelihood of the Jeep falling to pieces with a sharp braking being significant, it is definitely impressive. It also reminds me of someone driving an old, dodgy car, having learned all its kinks to be able to keep it running.

, you've probably been exposed to a wealth of new high-tech safety features that probably aren't on your current car. Virtually every automaker offers at least some of them, and a few even include them as standard equipment. Heres 6 safety features to consider before buying your next car. Transcript: 6 safety features to consider Before buying your next car 1. Automatic high beams Car senses when it’s dark enough and Automatically makes the brightest view forward. When a car is detected ahead, the car Automatically switches the high beams off. 2. Lane keep assist Takes lane-departure warning to the next level. It will subtly steer you back into the middle Of the lane, sometimes these systems Use subtle braking. Performance and quality depends On the car company. 3. Blind-spot warning Monitors your blind spots and alerts you To the presence of other cars. Should you try to make a lane change Lights will flash or the car will provide An audible warning. A helpful system but properly set mirrors Often render them a bit redundant. 4. Brake assist Detects when a driver has initiated a panic stop And provides full anti-lock brake stopping power. brake assist is often standard. 5. Forward collision warning This system scans the road ahead. For stopped vehicles and alerts the driver Using warning lights and noises. More advanced systems can detect Pedestrians, cyclists, or animals. 6. Automatic emergency braking Should the driver not heed the audio and visual Forward collision warnings, the car can Apply the brakes automatically. Speeds at which the system operates depend on The car or version of the system. These have been proven to prevent or lessen The severity of crashes. Learn more at autoblog.com

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